


After she dies

by mrsfizzle



Category: Smallville
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24059074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsfizzle/pseuds/mrsfizzle
Summary: An extension to 5x9, Lexmas, showing what the rest of Lex's life in his "possible future" vision would have looked like after Lana's death.
Relationships: Lana Lang/Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor/OC
Comments: 18
Kudos: 14





	1. Grief

**Author's Note:**

> This is a two-shot extension of episode 5x9, Lexmas. It sort of takes the form of a letter from Lilian Luthor to her son, telling him what would have happened after Lana's death (I never understood why she would show him the darkest moment of his "good" future, in order to convince him to aspire to that future . . .)
> 
> One thing, though: I technically wrote this before I ever watched the episode, on the basis of an incomplete plot summary, so I didn't realize Lex had children in the vision. So this is a bit AU, because it assumes Lana and Lex never had kids. I also assumed that Lex's job was heading up a charitable non-profit of some sort. However, all other events in all previous episodes are assumed to have occurred as in canon.

You're not the one to make arrangements for Lana's funeral. The shock numbs you. You write checks to people who can make arrangements for you, and you can't even feel the pen in your hand.

You don't speak at her funeral except in monosyllabic response to the dozens of people who put their arms around you and express their sympathy. You keep thinking you should weep for her, and your friends think the same thing—you can see it in their swimming eyes—but the tears won't come.

After the ceremony, you find yourself home alone. It's the smallest house you've ever lived in, but it's never been so enormous. Cavernous. You can't make your way back to your bedroom, can't stand to face it alone, so you sit down on the couch. Numb. Silence envelops you, and the only thing you can feel is the time pass, like molasses.

You doze off, a little, and there are visitors in and out of your tiny enormous house the next day. Clark and Chloe try to talk with you, even though you don't have much to say. Martha and Jonathan sit with you for an hour, mostly quiet. Jonathan puts his hand on your back and Martha holds your hand, but even then the tears won't come. Friends drop by: some bring flowers, some bring casseroles, some bring words and prayers, all bring open arms. Some part of your subconsciousness is aware that you'll appreciate them all some day. Today they're all just noise.

Noise, on and off, for forty-eight hours. Then, for twenty-four, there's only the occasional buzzing of your phone to interrupt the silence. You never check the screen.

When Clark and Chloe come the next evening to see why you haven't answered the texts, and they ask the last time you've eaten, you don't have an answer. You think you've gotten up a few times to use the bathroom; you're pretty sure Martha brought you a glass of water, since it's still half full on the table; you've been in and out of partial sleep, but you see Lana's face every time you close your eyes, and you don't want to. The concern in their eyes washes over you, but you can't feel it.

They bring you something to eat, place it right in front of you, and you can't eat. They don't leave until you've tried. You don't mean to, but you throw it up after they've gone. You've never been so sick in your life. The nausea doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts, and you wonder if that makes you a monster. Maybe you've always been a monster.

In the silence of the night, you try again. You can't get yourself to shower, but you give the cold food another try. You chew but can't swallow. You manage a little water. You try hard to cry, squeezing your eyes shut so the image of her face fills your mind, but the taut shell enveloping your thin skin won't budge. You feel nothing.

The next morning, Chloe comes by and makes you breakfast. It may as well be sewage, for all your nausea. She pushes you a little too hard to eat, and you snap. You shout choice insults at her until the tears that won't come to your eyes fill hers, and she slams the door on the way out.

Midday, Clark storms through your door. He yells at you, hard. You take it, silently, until somehow, your shell cracks. His anger sears your flesh, and all at once you can feel _everything_ : pain like you've never experienced, not when all of your peers and friends rejected and tortured you as a child, not when Julian and I died in the same year and your father blamed you and beat you, not in your years and years of believing you'd never be loved. Hot tears spill from your eyes, and Clark's scolding cuts off mid-sentence as you drop to the couch and bury your face in your hands.

He sits with you. After a few minutes, you try to stop crying, and you can't. You can't cry hard enough, and you can't fight the violently shaking sobs. Clark asks if you'd like to be alone, and you can't even get the words out to lie and tell him you would. So he sits with you. When the sun goes down and all of your muscles are exhausted from weeping, but you still can't stop, he calls Chloe to tell her not to wait up. He hangs up, sits down, and puts a hand on your shoulder, and you look up to see his eyes shiny and overflowing, too. When you stand to pace, he stands to embrace you, and his tears wet your shoulder, too.

Chloe drops by and wakes you up in the morning with breakfast. Eyes swollen half shut from last night's tears, you apologize to her and eat without complaining. Your stomach hurts, but you manage to keep it down. She smiles; she's not angry.

But of course, she's worried, and she tells Clark's parents how worried she is about you, and they offer to let you stay with them for a little while until you can stand to be surrounded by so many memories. You turn them down, but you call them an hour later to see if the offer still stands. You convince yourself to shower before you head over.

Jonathan is out at work and Martha is washing dishes in the kitchen when you arrive. She stops to ask how you are, and for the first time in years, you speak your greatest fear: that your wife's death is your fault. You lament the futility of your fight to become worthy of anything but hatred and apathy. Martha tries to tell you it's not true, that you're not thinking straight, but the truth is you can't really hear her and you're not trying to. You tell her you're giving up: you'll live and die as you've always feared, alone and unloved.

Martha knows you're not listening to her, knows you don't want to. She raises her eyebrows and delivers a hard two-fingered tap to your left temple. The impact resonates in your skull, waking you up so you hear and never forget her next words:

" _I love you_. Jonathan loves you, your friends love you, Clark would die for you any day of the week. Most of the people who work for you love you, and all those people you've helped? They adore you and they haven't even met you."

The words burn—cauterizing, cleansing. You're trembling. She sighs, sets her palm on the side of your head, and gently strokes your temple with her thumb.

"With or without Lana," she says, "you might be the most loved man in this town."

"I don't deserve that," you manage to say.

She smiles. "You don't have to."

You shake so hard, she puts both arms around you. Just for a moment, soft light fills you, chasing back the deep darkness, loosening the grip of its claws around your soul. But the darkness isn't just in you: it's part of you, and it rages against the divide. You feel the truth you've always known: healing won't be all comfort and relief. At times it will be surgical, messy, maybe even bloody. You're terrified. You grip onto Martha so tight, you know you must be hurting her, but you can't help it. She doesn't let go until you do.

When you wake up the next morning after a full night of sleep, the grief is as overwhelming as ever, but your shame is gone. It takes a moment to recognize yourself in the mirror without it. You pull in a breath, and the air tastes different than it ever has.

You get up and help Martha around the house. You talk about Lana, and you spend a few minutes wetting her shoulder with your tears, but only a few.

It takes you another week to make your way back home, two weeks to smile—for just a moment, when Jonathan echoes Martha's sentiments—and a full month to visit your workplace. It's business as usual among your employees. Their highest priority has been keeping things running while giving you space, and they've done almost as well without you as with you. Two months after the funeral, you put on a suit, go to the office, and start chipping away at the backlog of emails and letters.

Friends mostly stop checking in after three months have passed, but Clark and Chloe were close with Lana, too, so they still come by at least once a week. They're still grieving, and they still want to talk about her. By now, so do you. For the most part, you save the tears for your pillow, but you've come to look forward to their visits for their own sake. You have some of the most honest conversations you've ever had with them, share things you've never said, and learn things you never knew. But you're not angry with Clark for having kept secrets from you, and you don't blame him—you're just happy to know them now.

The grief comes in waves. Some days drown you so the pain is worse than it was on that first day, and some days the grief leaves you alone altogether. You know you have people you could call on the bad days. Usually you don't, but you could, and that's all you need.


	2. Life

It's been ten months when a girl from the accounting department at one of your allied companies smiles at you. You don't smile back. You talk to Clark about it later, and he says you should have, that Lana would have wanted you to.

You've seen this girl before, but you tended to avoid her when Lana was alive: she's the kind of girl who's pretty enough to make a man forget all his promises. She tries again: makes small talk with you, and you make her laugh, and her laugh makes you smile.

She takes her time. Makes excuses to come over to your office building, gets to know you in spared minutes over the weeks. You don't have money or power she could be after, which means that for some reason, she likes you. Broken, penniless you.

You've been sparing moments for her for almost four months when you finally ask her on a date. You find you're not scared she'll reject you; you're scared she'll say yes. But her smile is so, so beautiful when she does.

You almost call her to cancel on the big night, but as you're about to dial, Clark's number pops up on the screen. He warns you not to cancel or he'll come over there and slap you straight. You laugh a little and put on a tie.

One look at her in that dress fills you with shame. Her intelligence and sweetness have always proven it, but you've never been more aware of the extravagance she deserves until now, when you can't give it to her. But she never stops smiling through the pitifully simple dinner, and she gushes at the measly flowers you bring her. You remember to open the doors for her, but forget almost everything else you've learned about etiquette, and when you want to impress her with your wit, the most profound thing you can think to say is that she looks pretty. But she gushes and thanks you, and holds up her end of the struggling conversation you can give through the pain that still hasn't stopped, and she asks if she can take you on the next date.

You're careful about it, but in time, you share bits and pieces about Lana. She tells you about the abusive husband who she divorced. She's broken, too, and somehow you just fit.

She doesn't make the pain go away, and she doesn't fill the gaping hole in your heart—any of the gaping holes, for that matter. She's her own piece of your life, a piece that grows throughout all the bad movies and cheap dinners and overpriced coffee breaks. A piece you don't know how you ever lived without.

Seven dates later, you realize you love her.

You don't tell her. Neither of you are ready for that. But you can see the reciprocation in her eyes, and Chloe asks you outright after a double date, "Do you love her?"

"I don't know yet," you say, and it's the first real lie you've told in awhile, but based on her grin, she can tell you're lying.

You wait another year to propose. The wedding is small, but the important people are there. Your eyes mist as she walks down the aisle, and you can't help but think of Lana, but it's easier to push the thoughts aside than you'd expected. You make vows you'll keep to the death.

It's been five years since the funeral when you look into the blue-green eyes of your first son. He lies in your wife's arms, and your arm is wrapped around her, and darkness has no place in you, not even to rage against the light. Even with the still-painful wounds that mar your heart and never won't, you feel whole.

Two years later, another son. Four years after that, a daughter, around the same time that Clark and Chloe have their firstborn, also a daughter. The girls are more or less best friends from birth. Your boys fight, friendly rivalry, but they love each other and their sister.

You and your wife take way too many pictures on their first days of kindergarten, and every other grade after that. You take them on camping trips, since that's about all you can afford, but it's about all they want.

You learn to live whole and broken at the same time. It surfaces when you least expect it. You're a tough father. Too tough, despite your best efforts. You're fair about when you scold, but not about the strength of your words. One day, after you make your younger son cry for lying to you, you overhear the older comforting him in their room. The younger says he'd rather be smacked than scolded by you. The older says it's all worth it when you say you're proud of them, that it's the best feeling in the world.

Your wife insists you're a good parent, but you're never convinced by her. Some days, though, the kids convince you you're not all bad. The way your younger son crawls into your arms after he falls off his bike. The way your baby girl screams with laughter when you swing her high in the air, hold her close and cover her little face with kisses. The way the oldest rolls his eyes when you tell him you love him the day after his longest grounding, and says, "I know, I _know_ , Dad." Then, muttered: "Love you too."

You blink and they're teenagers. Blink again and they're gone.

Your second son marries Clark's oldest daughter, and your daughter is the maid of honor. You cry after the ceremony. You're more than whole—you're overflowing, and the joy fills you to bursting.

By miracle, all three of your kids and all four of Clark's make family reunions a priority. Christmas has never been so sweet.

You retire. Your daughter takes over the company and carries on the good work you've done, far better than you ever did. You swell with pride.

Empty nesters, you and your wife have dinner with Clark and Chloe almost every week. Every once in awhile, Lana's name is dropped in casual conversation. Your new wife doesn't react much, and Chloe doesn't frown, but Clark always glances at your face to make sure you don't flinch. And you don't.

You hear about Lionel's passing on the news. You go to his funeral, but a year later, you weep more at Jonathan's, then even more at Martha's. But theirs are celebrations of lives well lived, and you have hope that yours will be the same.

When you're in your early seventies and Clark is in his late sixties, Chloe passes away. His children and yours visit him throughout his shock, numbness, then through the pain, but no one spends longer at his side than you do. It isn't a debt to be repaid, but a gift you can afford to give. You have so, so much love to spare.

You outlive your new wife, but not by long. Clark visits on the day before your death and reassures you that your family will be fine. Your children and grandchildren weep beside your deathbed, and you hold their hands and smile as you breathe your last.

Fight the darkness, my child. Never, ever believe you will be unloved.

_End_


End file.
